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3:10 AM
0
Q: Why is "Fey" translated as "Inefable"?

AdamantSo far as I can tell, in the series Cursed, the Spanish version decided to call the Fey los Inefables. Now, it is easy enough to understand why they did not simply go with the English word "Fey," since it is easily confused with the Spanish word fe, meaning faith. However, I cannot understand the...

 
 
1 hour later…
4:26 AM
0
Q: How does everyone in Star Wars understand driodspeak?

Just another Star Wars geekAll throughout the Star Wars movies, we see the droids emit several beeps and whirs, and the humans reply to the droid as if it were a normal conversation. So here is my question: How can every character in Star Wars fluently understand droidspeak? We know that Anakin Skywalker could speak severa...

0
Q: Did Voldemort really have control over the Inferi?

Kyle VIn Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry have this exchange right after they enter the cave and just before crossing the lake that would get them to the Horcrux Island where the Drink of Despair was located. This is what is written: Immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin ...

 
4:51 AM
0
Q: Does the Widow cause people to die?

AdamantThe Widow comes to the dying and sucks their souls out, or something along those lines. But does she merely sense their death and come to usher their souls on to the afterlife, or does she cause it? On the one hand, she certainly confronts Morgana in order to try to stop her from interfering, whi...

0
Q: What does the Cailleach's spider do?

AdamantWhen Morgana is in the Cailleach's lair, the latter puts a spider in her body. However, what she gains by doing this is not clear. On the one hand, we see Morgana chanting monotonously at the party in Episode 7, or thereabouts, while the spider crawls out of her eye socket, which is definitely a ...

 
5:16 AM
0
Q: How many Captain Americas were there in 2012?

MöozOk, so famously, in Endgame Captain America fights an earlier (and comically patriotic) version of himself: Number of Caps: 2 It was also discovered that when he went back in time to live with Peggy Carter, it was entirely possible that 'old-Cap' was alive in that...

0
Q: In the film Legend, why is the fairy with a deformed hand with the goblins?

Canadian Girl ScoutIn the Ridley Scott film, Legend, there is a gang of goblins that includes a fairy that has a deformed hand. I've always wondered if he was shunned by his own kind (Gump was a piece of work - maybe he banished him for not being perfect). Was he born with his hand this way? Was he looking for comm...

 
6:07 AM
0
Q: For how long were the Shadows and Vorlons at war with each other?

RichSAccording to this post, we know of 3 recent Shadow Wars. One 10,000 years ago, the second 1,000 years ago and the last in the 2260s. The Shadows and the Vorlons are far older than these recent conflicts. Wikipedia says that both races have been in conflict for at least a million years. How long h...

 
6:32 AM
0
Q: Why would Voldemort put a boat in the Horcrux cave lake if he can fly?

RichSFrom the novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin air, extending from the depths of the water into Dumbledore’s clenched hand. Dumbledore tapped the chain, which began to slide through his fist like a snake, coiling itself on the...

 
 
1 hour later…
7:48 AM
0
Q: What does "difference" refer to when Eron says “I'm not around enough people to know the difference”?

Martin SheenIn Upgrade (2018), Eron visits Grey, who lost hands: Eron: You're someone who liked to get things done with their hands. Now you can't. I'm sorry, was that inappropriate? I'm not around enough people to know the difference. What does "difference" refer to?

 
8:07 AM
What is the [shadows] tag meant to refer to? The race of Shadows? The tag is quite ambiguous under its current naming and it has no wiki excerpt. It might be better to rename the tag to something like [babylon-5-shadows] or [shadows-race]. However, I'm not entirely sure the tag is even needed in the first place. — TheLethalCarrot 15 secs ago
Thoughts?
 
0
Q: Book where a kid playing baseball gains super speed and knocks over the seating stand

DeclanWhen I was younger I read this book about superheroes. Its protagonist gained super speed during a childhood baseball game and knocked over the seating stand. It was called it was kind of in a similar vain to the film Zoom.

 
 
2 hours later…
9:57 AM
@TheLethalCarrot I thnk it might be needed, if you're interested in the bab5 shadows
as opposed to say, the show itself
and one day, maybe it wants to be made more specific, but I don't see any mis-tagging or calls for it to be made more specific to make way for X
Lets see if there's anythign else shadowy lurking out there in tag-space
[tag:shadow*]
darn that doesn't work :(
 
Suppose 44 results for [babylon-5] is:q shadows though there are flase positives there
 
@TheLethalCarrot true
also no all of them will be about that race, as opposed to just feature them
 
Exactly
It doesn't seem inherently worthwhile but I suppose it isn't doing any harm to have it
However, I don't like the name it has currently
 
wild carding the search brings back these
none of them seems like they would also work as just 'shadows'
 
When plural they always seem to referred to as The Shadows, I wonder if would be better?
 
10:01 AM
@TheLethalCarrot that seems good
 
Just to, hopefully, avoid people using it for shadows in general haha
 
@TheLethalCarrot again, until we see an issue my personal policy is not to go poking stuff
 
I'm 50/50 on that but in this case the name does seem somewhat incorrect anyway
 
@TheLethalCarrot true, I'll begrudgingly admit that
 
Though tbf I'm going from the fandom page, I've no knowledge on Babylon 5 so I may be wrong
 
10:05 AM
@TheLethalCarrot likewise I have no first hand knowledge
 
I'll leave it alone, @Randal'Thor might have a better idea
 
@TheLethalCarrot are they a, whats the fanonym? Bab-head?
Babylonian?
like trekie but for babylon-5
 
Apparently it is Lurker
 
@TheLethalCarrot oh, I saw that and it confused me with the online 'lurker' which is from coin machien lurkers
 
0
Q: Who were the Red Warriors in The Solar War

LiathIn the Solar War (of the Horus Heresy series) the mining ship that Mersadie Oliton was one was attacked by "Red Armoured" space marines. However, are they Word Bearers or Blood Angels? Given that However, I would have expected her to comment if she was being attacked by loyalist marines. Which l...

 
10:20 AM
From a "lurker":
> Like the humans living in Downbelow. Because they observe the goings on on the station.
 
@TheLethalCarrot ahh ok
 
10:45 AM
1
Q: When and how was the word 'Trekkie' coined?

AncientSwordRageWhat is the difference between a Trekker and a Trekkie? extolls the difference, but I am wanting to know how the term was first used, or coined? It seems to go a long way back, further than I had assumed.

0
Q: Which God elevated Lorgar to Deamonhood?

LiathMy understanding was that the Chaos Gods very rarely shared their toys. Be'lakor and Horus being the two most notable representatives of Chaos Undivided. Most of the primarchs are fairly straight forward: Mortarion - Nurgle Fulgrim - Slaanesh Angron - Khorne Magnus - Tzeench I don't think Horus...

 
 
1 hour later…
11:48 AM
@TheLethal @AncientSword The Shadows are a pretty important part of the Babylon 5 universe, so it could make sense to have a tag for them as the tag gets bigger, in the same way as we have tags for e.g. . On the other hand, I do think is too ambiguous a name, and is going to be misused e.g. by people asking ID questions about stories featuring shadows. We could go the Star Trek way and stick on the beginning of the tag name maybe?
 
Prefix does seem like the best way to go
Is it The Shadows though?
 
@Marvin Nice question. Surprising that hasn't been asked here before.
@TheLethalCarrot In the same way as we can talk about the Sith or the Hobbits or whatever. Putting on every tag only applies to titles, I think.
 
Okay
@Randal'Thor Good question, the source seems to be almost completely lost though with everyone only talking about where it originated rather than tracking it down
 
IIRC, that same Babylon 5 OP has created other character and species tags for B5 before and someone (Ed?) kept editing them out and telling him off. Not sure why really, as we don't have a strict policy against such tags and use them quite a lot in some of the bigger franchises like HP and SW.
 
Character/race tags are contentious, some don't like them at all and they're used differently per franchise
 
11:55 AM
@TheLethalCarrot agreed
I think they're fine and can be useful
 
Can be, overused a lot though I'd say
 
@TheLethalCarrot yes, but I don't recall when
 
Happens in HP a lot
 
Overused as in, someone putting them on a question that just mentions Voldemort rather than being about Voldemort?
 
This example is obviously not a good question and not worth editing but they are misused here for a recent example
Misused as in misused completely (see above) and on questions that just mention them
 
12:00 PM
That's sort of understandable if you think about what "tags" can mean in other parts of the internet. Sometimes "tags" just means a list of relevant keywords, rather than defining the main topic of the question.
@TheLethalCarrot That's weird.
 
They tend to be edited quickly though, it's more initial incorrect tagging
Which yeah makes sense as our definition of tags is slightly different to normal
 
I've had a skim through all the promising ones by title and to me this is the most promising example to include. — TheLethalCarrot 3 hours ago
@TheLethalCarrot I agree. Hoping for some more votes on that answer before I go and select it for the Tour.
 
I checked a few more franchise agnostic ones, that was easily the best; a lot of story id ones aren't good examples of story id
And a lot of franchise ones are either good top answers but it has quotes so it's the poor low quality ones at the bottom that would be selected or contain spoilers
 
Few of the better-written story-id questions have attracted a multiple answers that are well-written without including quotes. (If not from the work, then the question.)
 
Yeah, it's quite hard to find good answers to franchise-specific questions that don't contain any supporting quotes.
 
12:08 PM
@DavidW aye but they’re likely ineligible for the Tour for other reasons, likely length
 
12:19 PM
Jul 31 at 0:06, by AncientSwordRage
@Randal'Thor can we modify the query to exclude "WHERE body contains('> ')"
 
@AncientSwordRage I don't know anything about Data.SE coding. But we mods have direct access to the list of questions to choose from.
 
You could search for <blockquote> though I'd imagine
 
Hmmm
@TheLethalCarrot don't they store the markdown instead?
 
I thought it was the opposite, it was stored in the HTML... or at least to SEDE
Seems to be the HTML yeah
That's why we couldn't search for the going to break not updated CommonMark posts IIRC
@Randal'Thor Still clearly a fake page... Page not found every time
 
@TheLethalCarrot Would you believe that someone flagged my comment on meta as "page does not exist"?
 
12:29 PM
Haha, amazing
So I guess I would believe you
 
@Randal'Thor you mean it wasn't flagged by TLC?
 
That would be a safe bet
 
 
1 hour later…
1:41 PM
Van Helsing: The London Assignment is a 2004 action horror animated short film by Universal Studios Home Video. It features the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Robbie Coltrane and David Wenham. The London Assignment is an animated prequel to the 2004 motion picture Van Helsing (released the same year). It tells of the events before the film. == Plot == Monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing and friar Carl travel to London to investigate a series of horrific, and decidedly supernatural murders, being committed by the mad scientist Dr. Jekyll, in the form of his evil alter-ego, Mr. Hyde. When...
discuss
seems madder than the original
 
Seen the film it was based off of, not the animated short though
 
@TheLethalCarrot not sure if I could recommend either
 
I only saw the film when I was young and once, I remember liking it but that might be because I was young and din't know better
 
@TheLethalCarrot it borders so bad it's good, but it's also confusing and disappointing in places from what I rememeber
I have not seen the animated prequel
 
I might give it another go at some point
 
1:59 PM
Greetings, Earthlings.
 
Greetings
Finally decided to post the anonymous -4 homepage issue thingymajig
4
Q: Filter the score of the questions on the homepage before loading them

TheLethalCarrotAt the moment questions on the homepage are loaded by the top N most recent and then ones with a score of -4 or less are filtered out. This doesn't make much difference for a user who is logged in but consider anonymous users; their home page is only 15 questions in length. If someone was to edit...

 
2:24 PM
@TheLethalCarrot if you do, follow it up with the animated cartoon and let me know what you think?
@Donald.McLean bleep boop
 
@AncientSwordRage Homework...? HOMEWORK!?
 
@TheLethalCarrot No, unless you fancy writing a 20 page essay on them?
 
Depends, what's the marking criteria?
 
thats up to me
no more questions or I'll make it 30 pages
 
2:28 PM
40 pages
Fine, I'll let you off this time
 
0
Q: Does Treebeard have any children?

TheMadHatterIn the books Treebeard, laments the ents' loss of their entvives -which is why they can't have children anymore.However the way Treebeard describes the entvives, it seems that they ( ents and entvives ) spent some time together before they parted. Now when they spent time together they must have...

 
2:57 PM
@Mr.Boy there used to be a promotion on Sci-Fi SE to get more comics book questions asked (slight favouritism of one of the CMs at the time maybe), but that could have easily been tied into a sponsored promotion by distributor or publisher, which could have produced revenue. Similar lines could be taken in some other sites. — Pureferret 4 mins ago
would people be insterested in something like this?
 
You mean challenges?
17
A: Ways to improve and promote Science Fiction and Fantasy

TheLethalCarrotChallenges Topic Challenges run on some various sites across the network, for example on Literature, and are a good way to bring in traffic, certainly to low traffic tags. They are featured in the side bar in an "Upcoming Events" section and help promote certain things. Something I've seen arou...

Or the old promotional grant type things?
7
Q: Has Stack Exchange stopped running contests?

DVK-on-Ahch-ToIn the prior years, I recall SE running a series of assorted contests (per topic, overall site participation) with prizes on the line. Then this stopped completely. Is there an "official" statement from SE on this? (e.g., was there a business decision that such contests were not useful/helpful ...

 
Any/Either/Both
(essentially more homework)
but the key point would be, it would be tied to a promotion
 
I think @Rand was looking at doing a Challenges meta starting point thing
The latter would be harder to get started
 
@TheLethalCarrot but AFAIK it wouldn't be endorsed by SE
 
Well topic challenges awarded with bounties should be fine
Like on Lit, using the Upcoming Events section
 
3:11 PM
@TheLethalCarrot the way they worked before is that whoever asked the most/best Comic Book questions got free comic books
 
That was the SE endorsed promotion stuff though I guess?
Not the normal topic challenges as they are today
 
@TheLethalCarrot yeah, thats what I'm getting at
The context of the meta comment I self-quoted, was asking how changes to SO funding effected non-technical stack sites
 
Oh right gotcha
 
@TheLethalCarrot which makes financial sponsor ship relevant
 
Aye, I doubt anyone would really complain about financed events if there was a chance at winning actual real world stuff
 
3:22 PM
@TheLethalCarrot yeah, I just wanted to avoid feelings of selling out
 
Why, you got something lined up? :P
 
@TheLethalCarrot if only
Hi @Null
 
@AncientSwordRage Hi
 
hows tricks?
 
3:45 PM
@AncientSwordRage Are you volunteering to send free comic books to topic challenge winners this time? ;-)
 
@Randal'Thor uh no
I do still have the comics from last time
 
@TheLethalCarrot Yeah, that'd be good to get started here.
 
1
Q: Child's science fiction book about kids in space with a metal disk and an alien chasing them after it

AltdudeI recall reading a book in the 5th grade about a boy, a girl and a dog that end up traveling through space with an odd lizard-like alien. The kids found a piece of metal (a disk) and nailed it to their play "space ship" they have built. The alien is sort a master of disguise but he does it rath...

0
Q: Has Superman ever revealed his weakness to magic to the public?

Tyler McI read about how there might have been a comic issue where Superman reveals his weakness of Kryptonite to the public or at least what types of Kryptonite he is affected by. My question is has there ever been a comic where Superman tells the public about his weakness/vulnerability to magic, and i...

 
4:13 PM
2
Q: Short story: ultimate Martian weapon

Clara Diaz SanchezI am trying to remember the name of a book of short stories. It was a very thin paperback, with only 4 or 5 stories, and the cover was predominantly black. I don’t remember if it had any image on it. It was probably published in the 1970s, or possibly the early 80s. The story I remember best was ...

 
4:33 PM
If anyone's wondering, for a bit of trivia, the average rep of a user on SFF is 193, if you exclude 1 rep users that goes up to 326
 
@TheLethalCarrot I wansn't but thanks for letting me know
median? StdDev?
 
Lazy mean, was easy to do for a quick SEDE query before I finished work for the day
 
@TheLethalCarrot I mean is it possible to get those too?
 
You could probably do the median, can never remember how you do StdDev
 
4:49 PM
@TheLethalCarrot take each individual score from the average, square them, divide by the number of scores (e.g number of users) then sqrt the lot
 
Median would be easy just from looking at the users list.
@TheLethalCarrot What about if you exclude association-bonus users too?
 
@Randal'Thor true!
@Randal'Thor can you exclude those in SEDE?
 
Dunno.
 
Yeah I don’t know if that’s possible in SEDE, sounds like a time killer/fun brain exercise though so I might give it a go tomorrow
 
5:08 PM
@Randal'Thor 81 including 1 rep users
101 ignoring 1 rep users
 
@AncientSwordRage That's probably just because there are soooo many 101-rep users.
Odds are the median would fall in that big band.
 
@Randal'Thor up
@Randal'Thor yup
I didn't bother trying to weed out the 101-rep users
 
 
2 hours later…
7:35 PM
1
Q: Do Tolkien's orcs have pointy ears or tusks?

icewar1908Orcs are commonly depicted as being green skinned, tusked, pointy eared humanoids. and while the green skin part was made by games like Warcraft, i not so sure about the tusks or pointy ears. was there any canonical reference in any of Tolkien's work to orcs having pointy ears or tusks?

 
8:02 PM
Looking at the potential tour questions.. there had to be a better one than the suggested one...
20
Q: How was this character allowed to keep his helmet in Deadpool 2?

user76329How did Juggernaut still have his helmet while he was in prison? When he escapes, he has his helmet on. I can’t believe they would have just let him keep it on while there, or would bring it with them during the transport. Was there any explanation of how/why he still had it?

 
Not a great one in my opinion, is decent though
 
8:25 PM
@TheLethalCarrot mine or the suggested one?
Also I'm wondering if excluding star-* is wise?
 
0
Q: Leia's death and Jedi funerals

SpacePhoenixIs there an in-universe reason why when Leia died she wasn't given a traditional Jedi funeral (cremation)?

 
Also, I don't think the 'and where not like '%<tag%' ' works
 
The < is probably throwing it?
both really but I meant yours there, most aren’t gonna be great though
Also it’s where ... and ...
I don’t think and where is correct
 
8:41 PM
I really shouldn’t do SEDE on mobile I can’t spot my mistakes
 
@TheLethalCarrot yeah it's a struggle
@TheLethalCarrot likewise
@TheLethalCarrot maybe they're uriencoded?
 
You can do Posts.Tags LIKE ‘%star-wars%’
 
@TheLethalCarrot I think it's actually ' and lower(a.Body) not like '%<h6%'
 
I got the basic averages working: data.stackexchange.com/scifi/query/1271423
working on median now but there’s a typo somewhere
@AncientSwordRage what you trying to do? Link the query and I could have a look
 
@TheLethalCarrot I was trying to exclude iframes
 
8:51 PM
Oh there’s a function for StdDev, nice. That saves time haha
That’s working at least
@AncientSwordRage as in <iframe>?
 
@TheLethalCarrot yeah it's how the YouTube videos are done
 
Ah okay
 
@TheLethalCarrot nest all the queries!
 
Lol, on mobile so it’s not great
Iframe might not be stored in SEDE data.stackexchange.com/scifi/query/1271440
 
@TheLethalCarrot youtube-embed is though
So that might help
 
9:05 PM
Oh it’s cos it’s <iframe ...> woops
Not like seems to work
 
@TheLethalCarrot fair enough
 
@AncientSwordRage I don't know Marvel stuff at all, but the title suggests it might be spoilerific?
The last thing we want is spoilers in the Tour.
 
@Randal'Thor true
I think it is
I think we also have better questions than "what's the first X", especially at the example picked, the highest voted answer is later than the next highest voted one iirc
 
It’s kind of a spoiler yeah
 
9:16 PM
0
Q: Publicly Available Ways To Learn Magic In The DC Universe

Tyler McI have read in a DC comic about John Constantine where the superhero says that ultimate secret of magic is that anybody can do it. However, I don't believe I have ever read a DC comic that reveals any public available method for learning magic that's accessible to the average person. Is there any...

 
 
1 hour later…
10:28 PM
 
1
Q: YA fantasy novel about woman seeking revenge on her accuser with the aid of a shapeshfting dragon

KurtPrestonI read this book back in middle school, but cannot remember the title. It was a great story, but I can't seem to find it. The book begins with a woman falsely accused of witchcraft by her neighbor. She is found guilty and is sentenced to be made into an offering for the dragon. When the dragon fi...

 
11:23 PM
1
Q: TV Show where man could become adult or child

Vaughn OhlmanThis TV show is old, as I remember it, probably 90's or before. The only thing I can remember is that it involves a man that could become a child... like shape shift. I think they had two actors, one for his 'boy' and one for his 'man' form. That's like all I can remember...

0
Q: Did Steve Rogers have post high school education?

CBredlowSimply put: Did Cap ever go to college? In any continuity, did Cap or Steve get a formal degree?

 
@TheLethalCarrot 12 out of the 15 most recently active questions had a score of -4 or less? That seems like a lot.
 
11:48 PM
0
Q: Trying to Find - Sci Fi Show/Episode About Time Slow-Down

user131432Sort of like Outer Limits' "The Premonition", this was a story that included a time-slow-down mechanism set on a military base (at least partially). I was sure it was Outer Limits but I've looked at all episodes and it must be some other show. Very much that kind of production and timeframe. 1...

1
Q: Looking for a story about ancient sound recordings in stone

Dave GremlinMany, many years ago I caught part of a radio play or story (possibly adapted from a book) about recovering audio from stone. The idea was that, since sound vibrations are absorbed by their surroundings and diminish but never disappear (!?!?), it should be possible to recover the voices of peopl...

 

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